College and weight loss

tesenychristi

Does anyone have any advice on losing weight with a busy college schedule? I’m up from 5:30 am-10pm m-f and busy almost every hour between commuting to school,classes, and homework. Saturday I work all day and study most of the evening. Sunday I use to catch up on chores and find some relaxation time.

Needless to say, I’m busier than I’ve ever been, so I need some help! Lunch ideas, quick but effective workouts, or even how to reduce my stress levels, which I’m sure are contributing to my slow weight loss.

Also, quick dinner ideas. I’m currently reverting to box meals or ramen noodles for dinners.

goldthistime

By box meals, do you mean frozen dinners? I've used those with some success, I just added more vegetables, typically raw veggies, which should fit in with your fast and easy theme. Are you logging? Logging doesn't take that much time, providing you can stay away from these boards . Ramen noodle dinners might work for some, but personally, starchy carb heavy meals mess with my appetite signals. If you can't manage to log, I found that just paying attention to how much protein I was getting (I wasn't getting enough), and then adding in vegetables or fruit whenever I ate, has worked for me.

As to exercise, walking is often the easiest to fit in. Could you bring study cards or listen to something you or someone else has recorded, so you could walk and study? You're already existing on less than 8 hours sleep, so perhaps a morning workout routine wouldn't work for you, but in case I'm wrong, let me say that it's worked wonders for me. I never "run out of time" any more. I do 20-60 minutes, depending on how I'm feeling and how much time I have. I consider it a big stress relieving practice too.

Sorry, not the most complete answer, but consider this a long-winded "bump". Hopefully you'll get more ideas from others.

threewins

I've done that and things were quite easy for me. However some people may baulk at the idea of what I've done. That's fine.

Microwaved frozen veges for breakfast. Thaw them out in the evening, eat at home in the morning. You don't want to carry around heavy, wet vegetables in your bag. Vegetables are the most annoying of the foods I had.

For protein I used tuna between slices of bread. Ideally use frozen bread because you aren't going to be eating a whole loaf of bread in 2 days. Wrap in cellophane.

Peanuts for protein as well because they are easy to carry and inexpensive. Never carry more than a day's worth.

Fruit but not too much because it's heavy. Generally apples, rarely bananas because they get squashed.

Breakfast cereal. Have a small bag of Chex sized bites. Eat dry. Full of sugar.

If you can get a locker. Fill up with cans of tuna, have forks and serviettes in your bag. Eat when unusually hungry. Also keep there nuts such as almonds.

I found that it's important to get a routine going, so you are not trying to make decisions at 10:15pm when tired. As for exercise - well is 30 minutes of exercise going to increase your stress? If you are super busy just don't bother. You don't want to fail courses because you got fit.

LenGray

Hullo! Fellow overworked college kid here I work two jobs and go to school full-time!

I usually do my 'reset' on Sunday (Saturday is my 100% off day) and prep two meals, which I then use as lunch and dinner for the week. Most of the time, this is pretty hands-off, such as a crockpot soup/stew and a casserole. I also grocery shop on this day and make sure to keep a few frozen items, such as pizza, frozen veggies, chick'n tenders, and extra batches of stuff that I made in case I get bored of my prepped food.

If you're not into meal-prepping or want some more variety, you might try just cooking batches of stuff. Make a big pot of grains, chop/roast veggies, and cook up some proteins, then throw them all together with various toppings and sauces throughout the week.

As for college-induced stress, I've found that having my homework done by Friday is pretty helpful. On Friday, I buckle down and finish every assignment in my planner until Tuesday. I also look at long projects (such as thesis papers) and break them down week by week in my planner at the beginning of the semester so that I don't have the collision of 'project week' that tends to happen in the humanities ;p It's a lot of work on the front end, but has been very worth it, in my opinion, since I don't have looming assignments and can get everything done ahead of time.

Working out has been a little tougher, but I find doing 5-15 minutes of yoga when I wake up and go to bed has been really nice. Also, taking the stairs, walking around before class, and doing desk stretches/bodyweight exercises are all pretty quick and doable.